What was it like?
Jesse Owens sounds like an awesome guy, right? But, not everybody thought that. When Jesse Owens was born in 1913, there was still a lot of racial discrimination. Many groups, such as the well known Klu Klux Klan, abused many African-Americans. Slavery had been abolished in 1865 by the 13th Amendment, but African Americans were still not treated as equals. Though black people had gained their right to vote in 1870 with the 15th amendment, many southern states made them pass an extremely difficult literacy test, making it hard for them to exercise this right. The mindset during the time of Jesse Owens was "separate, but equal", African Americans were not allowed to go to the same schools, use the same facilities, or even live in the same part of town as the whites.
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Berlin, Germany, where the Olympic games of 1936 were being held, was also struggling with issues of race. Adolf Hitler took control of Germany on January 30, 1933, 3 years before Jesse Owens was in the Olympics. He had some very warped views, believing that people that were non-Aryan, such as Jewish and African-American people, were inferior, and should not even be considered humans. These ideas influenced the Olympic Games, taking away from the united feel of the Olympics.
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